Embodiments of this invention relate generally to the field of receipts, and in particular with options for receiving receipts. More specifically, but not by way of limitation, embodiments of the present invention provide methods and systems for electronic receipting of point-of-sale transactions.
Point-of-sale (“POS”) devices are widely used throughout the world. With most POS devices, after performing a transaction, a paper receipt is automatically generated for a customer. Often, however, the customer discards these receipts prior to using/down-loading the recorded information. Therefore, the receipts account for a significant amount of wasted paper and may serve no actual purpose since the information recorded on the receipt may be lost to the customer. Further, even for customers who may desire to utilize receipts to keep records of POS transactions and/or for return purposes, the receipts—because of the size and/or composition of the receipts, the inconvenience of transferring data from the receipt to a recording system, and/or the like—may not provide for accurate and/or convenient recordation of POS transactions.
Another issue with receiving receipts from a POS device is that they are typically merchant specified. In other words, the merchant dictates what is on the receipt, which in turn is often dictated by the specific equipment used to generate the receipt at the point of sale. For instance, a typical paper receipt from a restaurant may include the date of the transaction and the transaction amount. This may pose problems for those wanting to electronically capture and process transaction data as line item detail, and may require significant transformation or pre-processing of the data, if it exists at all.